AN: Hello and welcome! I bring you another chapter of Excelsior! First of all, I want to give a huge thank-you to all my 107 favorites out there! Thank you oh so much.
Secondly, this is the last you'll see of me for a little bit. As I said in the last chapter of Hammer of the Bat, I'm doing NaNoWriMo for the coming month so I'll be taking a break from these stories. When December comes around, however, I'll probably have a brand new story to post here :)
As always, eternal thanks to my lovely beta and NaNo buddy annbe11. Be sure to check her profile for some other great stories.
Now, on with the show!
Chapter 8 - Doing Whatever a Spider Can
The Burbs
One Week Before the SLA Entrance Exam
Peter's arms were aching, but couldn't say he hated the burn. The pounding of blood in his ears almost felt like the beat of a victorious march in the aftermath of so much struggle. He crouched on top of the signal metal signal tower and turned his head, trying the paint the panoramic cityscape into his head. The sun was currently setting on the horizon, giving off a beautiful burst of color as it's farewell gift to the city-dwellers. Peter even found himself giving a pleased sigh as he looked upon it. A slightly chilly wind blew in from the east, but it was a far cry from the arctic gusts that had come earlier in the year. Now, spring was well on its way to becoming summer and Peter needed only a light jacket to stay comfortable, even at these altitudes.
Sitting up there, with the expansive borough before him, Peter couldn't help but feel that this was his turning point. Over the last three months, Peter had been training his body as well as his mind. He had started lifting weights in his off-time and running around the neighborhood in the mornings. He also kept Ned in the loop on what was happening with his new Quirk and the two of them often spent their lunchtimes swapping stories and ideas, going over both the notes of Ned's Support cram school and Peter's observations of his powers. He and Tony had worked on his father formula as well as teaching him more about the mechanics that were a part of Tony's daily life. And Aunt May had supported him the whole way. Still, it was hard to believe he was here, looking down at the Burbs like a real hero.
This was a moment that he would remember for the rest of his life. Even if he failed his final test, he knew it would all be worth it, for this feeling.
The Burbs
Three Months Before the SLA Entrance Exam
After his weirdest school day ever, Peter had been at the mercy of the school janitor. The wait had been agonizing, but the janitor eventually set up a ladder and climbed high enough to bring Peter safely down from the wall. Then Peter had been left to stew in Principal Davis' office, waiting for Aunt May to arrive. When she did, she was informed that Peter had perpetrated several delinquent actions during the day, the biggest of which was scaling the school walls. Peter was given no opportunity to speak for himself and was sent home with a two-day suspension, Saturday detention the following three weekends, and an ominous remark that he should be thankful the police hadn't gotten involved.
On their drive back, Aunt May had just asked, "Peter, sweetie, aren't you afraid of heights?"
All Peter could say was, "Very much. I didn't mean to climb that wall and I don't know how I did it. I just stuck to it for some reason."
Aunt May nodded but said nothing. What could she say? It didn't make any sense.
After they made it back home, Peter shouldered his backpack and escaped to his room. When he was alone, he eased the backpack off his shoulders and dropped it to the floor.
That is, he tried to drop it on the floor.
Peter's eyes snapped down to his hand, where the strap of the backpack was currently stuck fast. It was happening again. He started shaking his hand vigorously. When Peter gave another hard shake of his hand, the backpack apparently gave up and the strap tore off entirely, letting the pack thump down onto the floor.
"Ah, man…" Peter said. Another backpack ruined.
The strap was still stuck to his hand and Peter quickly tried to remove the strap, but it ripped and came away in pieces with lose threads still sticking to Peter's fingers. Peter stared at his hands. He hadn't gotten a chance to before this. Where before his hands had been unmarked and ordinary, now there were tons and tons of little brown dots all over his fingers. Peter brought his hand closer to his face and squinted at these dots.
Weird. They almost look like…
Peter opened one of the drawers of his desk and pulled out a magnifying glass. When he held it to his hand, he smiled. What he had seen on his hand were not dots, but tiny hook-shaped barbed hairs. Even to Peter's untrained eye, they looked very similar to…
"Spider claws," he breathed. He continued to stare at the tiny claws adorning his hand until, right before his eyes, they all suddenly retracted back into his skin. Peter stared in amazement before he tried to bring them back. It took some experimenting, but he eventually found a way to clench the muscles of his hand that made the hairs come out.
Finally, an answer.
On a hunch, Peter pulled off his shoes and socks before holding the magnifying glass to the underside of his foot to search for similar hairs. This time it took a bit longer, but he was able to figure out how to project those tiny claws from his feet as well.
Okay, so… this is interesting. My hands and feet can stick to things like a spider. I wonder if…
His thoughts trailed off as he looked around his room. In an instant, he knew what he wanted to do. Slowly, almost nervously, he walked to one of the more barren walls and placed his right hand on the wall. It took a bit of time to get it right, but soon his hand was stuck fast to the wall.
Then his other hand.
Then his feet.
Soon, Peter was crawling straight up his wall and toward the ceiling. He had an absolutely beaming smile on his face as he shifted his position and clung to the ceiling of his bedroom. Peter couldn't help but giggle as he took an upside-down look at his room, feeling the curious sensation of gravity pulling him toward the floor while at the same time having no real influence over him.
"Whoa…" he said through his giggles. "Cool."
"Hey Peter, I'm going to order some pizza," Aunt May said as she pushed through Peter's slightly open door. "What do you waAHHHHHHHHH!"
Aunt May's scream caused Peter to scream in surprise as well. This caused him to lose his concentration and sent him falling to the floor to land in a crumpled heap. After they had both taken the time to calm down from the fright, a quite shaken Aunt May ordered them a pepperoni pizza while Peter left a message for Tony about the situation and then explained the day's events to Aunt May.
They were still talking by the time the pizza arrived.
Early the next morning, Tony had sent the car to pick Peter up and take him to Stark Tower. He had no time for Peter's excited exclamations and instead insisted on putting Peter through a nigh-uncountable amount of both physical and chemical tests to try and find the extent of the changes to his body. Once Tony was reasonably reassured that Peter wasn't slowly dying from any reactions to mutations, genetic defects, or latent traces of radioactivity, Tony started letting Peter's excitement infect him too. Soon the both of them set about trying to find the scope of these new abilities Peter possessed.
By the end of the day, they had concluded that, in addition to Peter's ability to stick to walls, he also possessed incredible strength (enough to easily lift at least six-hundred pounds) and a level of speed and agility that would leave any Olympic athlete green with envy. If that wasn't all, Peter also possessed a form of danger-activated reflexes that were so fast they bordered on precognition. They discovered this when one of the workshop's robotic arms had some sort of malfunction and flung a wrench at the back of Peter's head, only for the boy to instinctively duck to avoid it. Peter quickly recognized these as the bizarre tingles he had been having the previous day.
At this point, not even crowbars could remove the excited smiles they both had. There was no better way of saying it: that spider bite had given Peter a Quirk.
"We can definitely work with this," Tony had said.
2/16 - 22
2/20 - 29
The Burbs
Two Months Before the SLA Entrance Exam
Peter was still getting used to quirk but even so, he never lost sight of his father's adhesive. Between workouts, Tony's lessons, brainstorming with Ned, and school, Peter worked on the formula. Then one night, at two o'clock that morning, Peter sat bolt-upright in bed because he had figured it out. In the midst of a dream, he had a eureka moment. He couldn't even stop himself from laughing as he scribbled down his ideas like a man possessed.
The formula had suddenly clicked for him and he knew what it needed. The next batch of adhesive he cooked up didn't begin dissolving until an hour after contact was made with a solid surface and it was also much stickier than the original prototype. Tony had tested it with a few of his machines and calculated that this new version had a tensile strength of about one hundred pounds per square millimeter, which was frankly more than Peter could have hoped for in his wildest dreams.
Still, that left the question of how best to use it.
3/10 - 72
3/17 - 100(!)
The Burbs
Seven Weeks Before the SLA Entrance Exam
"So, just to clarify, you're not doing that glue gun idea, right?" asked Ned as he and Peter ate lunch one day.
"No way," Peter said around his ham sandwich. He continued after he swallowed. "Aunt May is worried enough as it is. I don't want to imagine how she'd feel if I was running around the city with anything even resembling a gun."
"What if it looked more like a spray bottle?" Ned asked, drawing a quick doodle on his napkin.
Peter laughed. "Mr. Stark will start calling me 'Mr. Clean', that's what."
"Hmm," said Ned, tapping his pen against his chin. "Maybe you could have some sort of shoulder-mounted cannon? Like that one fire-fighting hero with the water powers?"
"It has potential, but it might be too bulky."
"Right, you're a Jedi acrobat now. It would probably be too much."
Peter hummed in thought as he dropped some goldfish crackers into his mouth before he felt the tingle of his super-sense on the back of his neck. Peter immediately ducked his head down closer to the table, but nothing happened. After waiting for a moment, Peter slowly turned his head until he could glance over his shoulder. Sure enough, Flash Thompson was three tables away and glaring at him while he stabbed at his own lunch with far more ferocity than was necessary. Peter gulped and turned his eyes back to his food, trying to act like he hadn't just stolen a look.
Things had been… odd for Peter here at school since his new Quirk appeared. Flash had been keeping his distance and he and his minions hadn't offered up much more than vicious looks and a few insults in passing. Nobody had kicked Peter to the floor or shoved him in a locker in over a month, but Peter found he couldn't relax. His danger senses were going off every time Flash got too close or so much as looked in his direction, immediately putting Peter on edge.
"You okay, man?" asked Ned.
Peter gave a shaky nod. "I'm okay. Eugene is just staring at me." Ned didn't even attempt to be subtle as he looked for himself.
"Wow, that's cool," Ned said with a smile. "Your spider-tingle tell you that?"
"Yeah," Peter said with a nod.
"Awesome." Ned paused in thought before nudging Peter with his elbow. "You could try something where you shoot this glue from your butt. Like a spider, y'know?"
That suggestion was so crazy that Peter just had to laugh. For a moment he was able to ignore the tingling in his head.
"Yeah, I'm just gonna give that a 'no', Ned," Peter said with a shake of his head. "I want to be a hero with at least some dignity."
Ned laughed at the idea too before turning back to his sketch on the napkin. "Well, I'm not getting any other ideas right now, so I guess we can do more brainstorming later."
"Yeah, after English we can go to the library and work on it a bit more," Peter said with a nod.
"Wait, English?!" said Ned, suddenly looking worried. "Shot! I forgot to do my reading for today!"
"Oh," Peter said with a wince. They had been assigned to read the first few chapters of Robinson Crusoe in preparation for a discussion in class. Everyone was expected to contribute. "Want me to give you the cliffnotes version?" he asked.
"Actually, I should be okay," said Ned, pulling a mini laptop computer out of his backpack. He opened it and, with a short burst of keystrokes, he was connected to the school wi-fi. Ned reached to the back of his neck and pinched at the top of his spine. When brought his arm back around, a USB plug was in his hand with a cable leading back up to his neck. He plugged the cable into the laptop, which immediately flashed a number of web pages and text documents before turning off. The cable retracted back into Ned's neck and he gave Peter a grin. "Done."
Ned Leeds: Quirk – USB
His quirk gives him an extendable USB cable that connects directly to his brain. When he fits it into a computer, he can control it with the speed of thought as well as directly download information. On the downside, his 'RAM' is limited and if he downloads too much info at once, his brain might try to automatically free up some storage space.
"You make it look easy," Peter said, rolling his eyes. "Did you download the whole book?"
"Nah, just the first three chapters," Ned said, closing the laptop and putting it away. "Crusoe's kind of a jerk."
"Yeah, he is," Peter said with a nod. "But he's an 18th-century British guy. What else was he gonna be?"
"It's kind of slow, too," Ned said, scratching his head. "How do you manage to make being kidnapped by pirates seem boring?"
"I'm just hoping we get to the island soon."
"Yeah, I've seen a bit of one of the movies. Pretty soon he'll be swinging around like he's Tarzan and making giant treehouses."
Peter started to nod at that before his mind conjured up an image to go along with what Ned had said. He froze, his eyes wide.
"Wait," Peter said, holding up a hand. "Say that one more time."
Ned blinked in confusion. "Um… making giant treehouses?"
"No, the thing right before that."
"Swinging around like Tarzan?"
Peter gave a slow nod before he grabbed Ned's pen out of his hand and bent over the napkin, drawing furiously. The idea for the device was taking shape and he was trying to keep the pen moving as fast as his brain was.
When Peter had completed the rough sketch, he slid the napkin toward Ned as they both looked over it. It was a wrist-mounted launcher, using a trigger in the palm to launch adhesive from a nozzle. He had included a stick figure wearing a pair of these devices and swinging between two buildings.
Ned blinked a few times before he looked up at Peter with a big goofy grin on his face.
"I think we just found a winner, Pete."
"I think so too," Peter said happily.
The bell signaling the end of lunch rang just as they were finishing their congratulatory handshake.
3/24 - 151
3/31 - 185
The Burbs
Four Weeks Before the SLA Entrance Exam
Peter knew he had no reason to be nervous. This was just a test of his new prototype launching mechanism. He already knew that the adhesive itself worked and issues with the launcher itself could be fixed. He had no reason to feel so nervous about the upcoming test.
However, when he put his mind to it, he knew why he was feeling nervous. This was the second prototype launcher he had tested and he could still remember how the last one had gone. When he had pressed that button to activate the mechanism, he had expected a stream of adhesive to fire from the nozzle. Instead, a formless lump of goop had squirted out of the nozzle while the rest of the adhesive supply had exploded in the machine and oozed out of every crevice.
Peter had been mortified while Tony had spent the next few minutes howling with laughter.
But that was then. This is now.
He had decided to move away from his original idea of a gun that shot streams of adhesive and instead try a new design with a smaller nozzle and more power behind the release. A last-minute thought had him also include a motorized emitter nozzle that, with its multiple spinning chambers, should conceivably weave the adhesive into a sort of cord.
He just hoped that it worked in the real world as well as it did in his head.
Tony walked up next to Peter and clapped a hand on his shoulder.
"Ready to give two-point-oh a test, kid?" Tony asked.
"I think so, Mr. Stark," Peter said, hoping that this test was better received than the last one.
"Well, you have the countdown," Tony said before taking a step back. A camera had been mounted on one of the robotic arms that lived in the workshop and it adjusted itself to keep both Peter and the device in frame.
Peter gave his prototype one last examination. It was an ugly thing, set up like a slim box with lots of wires and metal bits out in the open for all to see. A press of a button on the remote he was holding made the nozzle give a few test spins, showing everything was working alright. Behind the nozzle was an air-tight chamber where blasts of compressed gas would shoot the adhesive from its removable capsule and toward the nozzle. From there the adhesive would, in theory, fly through the air and land on a target board that had been set up five feet away from the nozzle. Peter let out another nervous breath before stepping back from the device. It was time.
"Adhesive launcher prototype mark two," he said clearly for the camera. "Launching adhesive at target five feet from exit point. Commencing test fire in three… two… one…"
Peter pressed the big button on his remote.
THWIP!
Peter really couldn't believe his eyes. There, sticking out from the nozzle of the launcher, was a long thin cord of woven adhesive. He walked up to it and ran his finger across the cord before plucking it like a harp string, causing it to let out a satisfying little thrum. His face lit up with an impossibly huge smile.
"It works!" he cheered, throwing his hands up in the air. "It really works!"
"Ahh," Tony said, shaking his head at Peter's display. His smile had just the slightest tinge of mockery to it. "Baby's first gadget. It's a beautiful sight, indeed."
Peter was too excited to even register the 'baby' comment. His mind was already going into overdrive with how the design could be utilized and improved. As he stared at the corded line of adhesive his prototype had launched, it suddenly struck him that 'adhesive' didn't really fit what this was now.
To Peter's eyes, it looked more like a spider's web.
4/18 - 267
4/20 - 360
The Burbs
Present
Peter did another check on his new web-shooters. Like the prototype launcher before them they were boxy and ugly but they still did their job properly. Plus, he already had a bunch of new ideas to make the next model more streamlined and aesthetic. For the moment, though, these would be more than sufficient.
It seemed like Peter had everything he needed to succeed in the Entrance Exam next week. His powers were trained, his shooters worked wonderfully, and he knew the subjects of the written test like the back of his hand. If he thought about it, there was only one more significant obstacle to overcome.
The last test.
Peter pulled a small notepad and a pen out of his pocket before flipping through the notepad to a specific page. It featured a series of dates, with the first being only a few days after he first discovered his powers and the latest being just three days ago. Each date had an increasing number written right next to it.
Peter took one more look around The Burbs before making an entry for today.
5/11 - 982 (+ 10 for signal tower)
He underlined this line twice and put the notepad back in his pocket. He took a few deep breaths before nodding to himself and jumping down from the top of the signal tower. Peter walked to the edge of the building and looked down at the streets below. The cars and people below looked like toys or insects from this high up. For a moment Peter feared the vertigo would overwhelm him yet again. The ground below even looked to be moving further and further away. He closed his eyes and let out a long, calming breath.
He was ready.
Over the last few months, Peter had been working to overcome his fear of heights. His equipment and new Quirk were perfectly suited for moving at great speeds high above the city streets and there was no room in that equation for a mild case of acrophobia. It only made sense to begin putting himself in situations where he could overcome his fear. He had started small, just by climbing to the top of his house, but he knew he had to keep going higher and higher if he wanted to get anywhere. He had started going to the downtown areas of the Burbs and scaling the buildings, always trying to go higher than he had before. After a few close calls with people almost seeing him, he had started climbing at twilight, when the setting sun made it harder to focus on any human-shaped blobs crawling up the sides of buildings.
This climb was the last one, however. Skymark Tower. The tallest building in the Burbs. He was as high as he could possibly get while staying in the borough. Now, he just needed to take that final step. As the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky darkened, Peter shook his hands out and bounced on the balls of his feet.
"Well, no time like the present," Peter said to himself, cracking his neck a bit. After taking one more breath and a few steps back, he dashed forward and leapt out into open space.
For a second, time seemed to slow and the world went silent.
Peter took it all in. The last rays of sun glistening off of the polished glass of windows. The lights from cars, billboards, and phones below glittering like a thousand stage lights. The feeling of suspended animation that accompanied this blissful moment of freedom.
For a brief moment, Peter didn't feel like he was plummeting to the ground.
He was rising.
Then reality set in and Peter began to fall. His body was buffeted by the wind as he fell faster and faster. His ears were filled with wind and his eyes began to water. A scream of terror tried to leap from his throat as the ground came closer and closer every second.
Then Peter twisted in midair and extended his arm toward a nearby building. His middle and ring fingers found the pressure switch in the palm of his hand before clicking it.
THWIP!
The strand of webbing arced through the air before snagging on the stone face of the building and his fingers wrapped around the opposite end of the line. An instant later the web line jerked taut and he was swinging above the streets. He was on a collision course with the window of an office building before he used his other hand to fire a second web line and yank himself in a different direction.
He didn't know if it was his increasing skill with web-swinging or just the sheer rush of jumping off the edge of a skyscraper, but he felt more exhilarated now than any other time he had tried swinging. He had a grin on his face when he reached the highest point of his latest swinging arc and released the web line to perform a backflip before flicking his hand out to fire another web line.
He didn't even feel bad about the loud "WOO-HOOOOOOO!" he let out.
"Nice moves there, sugah."
Peter yelped at the sudden voice that had come from right next to him and managed to miss the target of his next web line. The web failed to connect with anything and Peter found himself falling toward the streets below, gravity once again exerting its tyrannical will over him. He had only fallen a few feet before a firm grip wrapped around his ankle and left him hanging upside down. He hung there helpless for a moment before craning his neck up. Peter's eyes went wide when he got a full view of his rescuer.
Her green suit was skintight, showing off an impressive collection of muscles. She wore a brown leather jacket over that, giving a rebellious edge to the ensemble. The look was completed by her long brown hair with a startling streak of white in it. Even if he hadn't recognized that, there were only a few heroes who could hover unaided in the air while holding another person up with one hand. And then there was the accent.
"Wat' kinda cat burglar are you to go swinging aroun' and shoutin' at the top 'a your lungs, boy?" she asked him, giving him the stink eye.
Rogue, the Number Seven Hero! Oh man, I'm so dead!
"Please! This is a mistake!" Peter cried out, waving his hands frantically. "I'm not a thief! I swear! I'm just a student!" Her brow quirked as soon as she stared hard at him. "Also, I know you must get this a lot, but I'm a big fan."
"What are you? Thirteen?" she asked
"…I'm almost sixteen," Peter murmured.
Rogue shrugged, turned herself in midair, and flew toward the roof of a nearby building. She set herself down gently and released her grip on Peter, who caught himself in a handstand before springing to his feet. She gave him a severe look and crossed her arms, drawing attention to the fact that she had a shopping bag dangling from her other hand.
"Mind tellin' me what in the sam hill you're doin' up here? And try to keep it snappy. I've got ice cream."
"Well…" said Peter, scratching the back of his head guiltily. "I'm up here training, actually."
"Trainin'? For what?"
"Well, I'm trying to get into SLA this year and the Entrance Exam is next week."
"SLA?" Rogue said with a smile on her face. "Well, shoot. My ol' alma mater. You seen the campus yet?"
"Only on the website. I haven't had the time to go and visit the campus yet."
"Oh hon, if you make it in, you're gonna love it," she said with a laugh. "Some of the best years of my life were at that place. I remember this one time when…" That was when Rogue trailed off and seemed to remember what she was supposed to be doing. "Anyway, why are you swingin' around the city so late? How are you even doin' that? Are those ropes your Quirk?"
"Actually, no. I made these," Peter said and pushed the sleeve of his jacket up to show the web-shooter. "It's a prototype, but it lets me shoot out cords of this webbing. I don't have any problem swinging because my Quirk makes me really strong and sticky. I'll be using it a lot as a hero and I wanted to get some practice before the exam."
"Neat," Rogue said, leaning closer to get a better look at his web-shooters. She leaned back and tapped her chin in thought before her face fell and she sighed. "You do understand that you're breakin' a whole mess a' rules by swingin' around up here like a madman, right?"
Peter winced. "Yeah, but I couldn't find any legal ways to practice. I didn't want to just show up at the exam with no idea what I was doing." Pete started rubbing his arm nervously. He knew that he was in trouble now, but he just hoped that the consequences weren't too dire. To his surprise, Rogue seemed like she was going through an internal struggle before sighing and massaging her temple.
"Ah, hell," she muttered before focusing on Peter. "What's your name?"
"Peter, ma'am," he said, automatically extending a hand. "Peter Parker."
"Well, Peter Parker," Rogue said with a small smile as she extended her gloved hand to shake his, "you seem like a good kid so I'm gonna let you off with a warnin' this time." Peter's eyes widened in surprise before her face turned serious and leveled a firm finger at him. "But you gotta keep your feet on the ground from now on, okay? I don't wanna catch you swingin' around and scarin' folk half to death 'til you get your license. Clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," Peter said, nodding his head vigorously.
Rogue seemed to suddenly gain a sparkle in her eye. "And, if you're serious about trainin', you definitely shouldn't check out that old sugar refinery on Fifth and Fredrickson. The one that's been abandoned for years. You for sure shouldn't go anywhere near that place."
Peter's jaw dropped as he stared at the pro-hero.
Rogue just gave him a grin and a wink as she lifted off from the rooftop. "Now, I'm thinking you have your own way to get down, right?" Peter had enough sense to nod dumbly. "Good. I gotta get home to a hot bowl of jambalaya and the hotter hubbie who's makin' it. Hope to see you again soon, Peter. I'm rootin' for you." With that, she zoomed off and was soon lost from sight.
Peter blinked a few times, still in awe at the conversation he had just had. Eventually, Peter stopped gawking and shook himself back to the present. The sun had completely set while he and Rogue were talking and the sky was getting darker by the second. He immediately ran to the side of the building to begin his descent.
Next week was the Entrance Exam. Seeing another hero made him realize he was far from finished with his training. Peter realized that this was just the beginning.
